Workbook for the New I.B. Economics

Welcome to the world of Workbook for the New I.B. Economics! While the current syllabus is in its last couple of years, the workbook’s comprehensive coverage and engaging and accessible style make it an excellent teaching resource and a superb revision tool for both you and your students.

The 2nd edition of the book offers full coverage of the current IBHL Economics syllabus, as outlined in the following document:

WBIBE 2nd Edition and IBDP Economics Syllabus Correspondence

I am always surprised when I hear from teachers who feel that if they have the Paper 3-style exercises and worked solutions (which were excerpted from the then yet-to-be-published second edition of the book and released electronically in March 2013 to help students sitting the May 2013 examinations) that they have the book. Be assured that there is a lot more to Workbook for the New I.B. Economics, 2nd Edition than its quantitative exercises.

First, there are its lessons, which can be downloaded (along with some sample pages from the printed workbook and teachers’ guide) from https://gumroad.com/bryce or saved to your desktop by clicking on the link below:

Workbook for the New I.B. Economics Second Edition Lessons March 2014

Second, there are the other exercises in the book, one set for each of the book’s 82 lessons and another set of thinking and review questions every 7 or 8 lessons.

Finally, there is the teachers’ guide, which contains the full solutions to all of the exercises in the book, suggestions for teaching approaches and learning resources and guidance to help students with their IB internal and external assessments.

After having looked at what the book has to offer, I invite you to order copies for your own use or for use with your students. I am happy to send orders worldwide from Canada via tracked surface mail. All I require is that you send me an email at bryceATbrycemcbride.com outlining your full postal address and the number of copies you would like.

Alternatively, if you are in the U.K. or Europe you may prefer to order copies from Richard Heath’s IB Bookshop. American customers may prefer to order copies from Amazon.com or IB Source. Distributors in India (Scholar Book Distributors and Parle Book Centre in Mumbai), China (China International Book Trading Corporation) and other countries have also proven reliable.

Finally, if you are interested in having your students do additional revision exercises on their own, I would invite you to order copies of the original Workbook for the New I.B. Economics. The book was published in 2011 with lessons and exercises bound together. However, despite the publication of the ‘new and improved’ second edition in 2013, the first edition still has its fans. As one teacher wrote to me last year:

“I love the first edition! I am now reminiscing over that book of yours with the orange and green cover!  It has saved me a lot of time in terms of days, weeks, even months.”

The full solution key for the first edition can be downloaded here to help students with self-assessment:

Answer Key – Complete – WFTNIBE

As you can see from the post below from August, I am selling the few hundred copies I have left at cost plus postage, so if you have the budget please consider making an order.

Thank you very much for responding to the postcards and I hope to hear from you via email in the near future.

Special back-to-school offer!

First edition books are now available for $5 plus shipping (which, for surface mail, should only cost 2 to 3 dollars per copy in North America or 6 to 7 dollars per copy worldwide).

If you are looking for a resource to improve your students’ understanding of the concepts and tools of I.B. economics, please send an email to me at bryceATbrycemcbride.com. This was the first workbook written for the more quantitative economics syllabus. Unlike other books from other publishers, it remains the only one which doesn’t resort to multiple choice questions but instead emphasises diagram analysis and evaluation questions.

Orders of more than 15 copies will also receive a complimentary copy of the second edition workbook and teachers’ guide. Copies of the second edition book are also available at the prices listed on http://brycemcbride.com/blog1/the-second-edition/. All the best for a great 2018-2019 school year!

On a final note, my two latest articles, Corruption, Money and the Banks and Trade Deficits and the American Empire are now available on the “Articles” page.

As we move towards the end of the academic year, it is always a good time to start thinking of acquiring resources for the upcoming school year.

One factor which I feel may be getting in the way of schools ordering materials is a belief that this coming August will see the adoption of an updated syllabus for IBDP economics.

While in the past the syllabus has been revised every 7 years, this latest update is supposedly going to take another couple of years and is only expected to be in place in time for students beginning in August 2020 and finishing in May 2022.

Thus, students writing exams until May and November of 2021 will still be following the current syllabus for which Workbook for the New I.B. Economics was written.

This being the case, I therefore encourage you to order additional copies if you have found the book helpful to your students. If you do wish to order books I especially encourage you to do so via Richard Heath’s IB Bookshop in the UK.

Finally, I would also like to draw your attention to my most recent articles, which have dealt with topics such as tensions in the Korean peninsula, the resilience of religious communities in the Holy Land, and the meaning of crypto-currencies.

All the best for a great remainder to the year.

With several comprehensive I.B. economics textbooks available from major publishers, it is easy to question the place of a book like ‘Workbook for the New I.B. Economics’ (in both editions) in the educational ecosystem.

However, I have had an interesting series of conversations recently with a teacher whose students have both the workbook and a textbook. His opinion, based upon observing his own classes, is that the workbook gives students a more accessible introduction to the course than a standard textbook.

This feedback made me very happy, and it accords with my own experience using the book. I have had many students tell me that the vivid language and examples in the book really helped them gain a solid understanding of the course.

However, as we all know, understanding a course and doing well on an exam are not one and the same. I would be the first person to recommend that student also use a quality study guide or textbook to help them master the course.

However, the sequence matters. If a student already has a fundamental understanding of economics they will not be overwhelmed by the detail in a more comprehensive textbook. On the other hand, I have seen students, especially weaker students, become confused and demoralized by the inaccessibility of some of the more exhaustive textbooks.

So, if you think your students would benefit from a book that allows them to scaffold their learning from understanding important principles towards mastering the fine details, feel free to download and have a look at the free online textbook or get in touch by email.

All the best for a great year ahead.

As the school year (in the Northern Hemisphere at least) screams to a close, please accept my best wishes for a smooth ending and a restful and relaxing vacation.

If you wish to order copies of Workbook for the New I.B. Economics for next academic year, please do not hesitate to do so. The earlier I get the orders in, the earlier I can get them out and on their way.

Again, while I am happy to fill orders directly {just send an email to bryceATbrycemcbride.com with your address, the number of copies you desire, and your preferred method of payment (cheque or credit card)}, I am also happy to direct you to local distributors. If you are in the U.K. or in Europe, I would encourage you to order from Richard Heath’s I.B. Bookshop. If you are in the U.S. or elsewhere in the world, I am happy to direct you to I.B. Source. You may also wish to order the book from Amazon.com, especially for single copies.

The book is available in two formats. The first edition book incorporates both the lessons and the exercises, while the second edition contains only exercises, the lessons being freely available online as a PDF. To download the PDF, please go to the page above entitled ‘The Second Edition’ or my page at Gumroad.com.

As the current syllabus is now scheduled to be in place for longer than the customary 7 years, if you have not yet purchased a class set of the books for your students I would encourage you to do so. I use the book myself and I have had a great deal of success (over half of last year’s cohort of 50 students earned a ‘6’ or a ‘7’) using it as the daily textbook/ workbook along with a quality study guide to help students prepare for exams.

Finally, as I haven’t updated my site for a while, I invite you to read my latest articles Conservative Renaissance and Cheques that can never be cashed on the Mises Canada website or on the page above entitled “Articles.”

Thank you for your continued patronage and again, all the best for a wonderful vacation.

As we move into 2017, I would like to wish everyone a happy and prosperous new year.

For those who may not have heard, the current syllabus has been extended to 9 years, so students starting the diploma programme both this coming academic year (August 2017 – exams May 2019) AND the subsequent two years (August 2018 – exams May 2020 and August 2019 – exams May 2021) will be taking the current course for which the book was written.

Personally I have hit upon a very good combination of books that my own students have found very useful. For day-to-day work I use my own workbook and online lessons. However, to support mastery of the material I have been ordering Ellie Tragakes’  study guide, I.B. Economics in a Nutshell, for my students as well. The books have very different styles and this, I think, is why they work so well together. While my own book helps develop an understanding of principles, which is essential as a first step, Ellie’s book is wonderful at listing and ordering the course material in a way that is comprehensive yet concise. Happily, the the two books together cost about the same amount as a single textbook from one of the big publishers.

Lastly, if you would like to read my most current articles, Monetary Pollution and Hypernormalisation, please go to the articles page here.

As we move into a new school year, I would like to invite schools which have not already purchased class sets of Workbook for the New I.B. Economics, 2nd Edition, Exercises to consider purchasing inspection sets of one copy along with one teachers’ guide.

Up to this point, teachers’ guides have only been sold along with class sets of the book, but after taking inventory this past month, I am confident that I have enough teachers’ guides to consider offering them to schools interested in using the book as a teacher resource.

For North American schools, I am happy to send the books myself, while for international orders I would ask that you place your orders with Richard Heath’s IB Bookshop in the U.K.

Thank you and all the best for a rewarding academic year.

P.S. – Please feel free to have a look at my recent articles entitled School Closures and The Tragic Consequences of Success here.

…thank you for coming by for a visit. Please feel free to have a look around the site. Information related to the 2nd edition of the book is found on the page listed above entitled “The Second Edition.”

The first edition of the book (published in April, 2011) was also written for the current syllabus and might be more appropriate for schools where students do not have laptops or tablets with which to access the online lessons that support the second edition exercise book.

One last thing that I did not put on the postcard which I would like to make people aware of is the possibility of ordering the book through International Schools Services (I.S.S.). I have found both I.S.S. and Richard Heath’s IB Bookshop to be excellent distributors and I would encourage schools to use their services. Of course, it is also possible to order books directly by emailing me at bryceATbrycemcbride.com.

Thank you again for visiting, and please accept my best wishes as you prepare your students for their exams in May.

Wow! As the current syllabus came into force in August 2011, we are now almost five-sevenths of the way through (as the new syllabus will start being taught in August 2018, just over two and a half years from now).

Having totted up my yearly sales figures and imputed my inventory, I am pleased to announce that I am in good shape to keep customers in books for the next couple of years as I have about 800 copies of each of the first and second edition books on hand.

One thing that has pleased me this year has been a revival in sales of the first edition book. Many students find a book where the lessons are printed right beside the exercises to be easier to use, which is something I will keep in mind when I update the book for 2018.

Anyway, thank you for your support in 2015 and best wishes for a happy and fulfilling new year.

I hope you all have a well-deserved break and enjoy some fine summer weather. Schools interested in ordering copies of the book for the next academic year starting in January are asked to let me know by late December to ensure timely delivery.

I would like to here also remind people that Workbook for the New I.B. Economics, 2nd Edition, is available from Pronin IB in Australia and from Richard Heath’s IB Bookshop in the UK. If you are, as a school, ordering other books from these vendors it is an easy thing to add some copies of this book to your order.

Finally, if you are interested in some seasonal economics writing, I bring to your attention the following article which ran on the mises.ca website on October 30th and in the Pembroke Daily Observer on October 31st:

Trick and Treat